Coming Fury, Volume 1 (29 page)

It was already taking it, as a matter of fact. Buchanan had come all the way around; Stanton and Black would not leave his cabinet, but would dominate it instead, and although the President would regard himself as little more than a caretaker, holding on in the White House until the new man came in, he would very definitely be a pro-Unionist caretaker.

Howell Cobb had left the cabinet, and now John B. Floyd was following him; and the South, which until recently had dominated both Buchanan and his cabinet, now had lost all but a trace of its old influence. Floyd left under the oddest circumstances, for reasons that had nothing to do with slavery, states’ rights, or embattled forts, but his departure helped to tighten the lines.

Floyd, by clumsiness, had got himself into a rousing mess. The War Department had had extensive dealings with a western transportation firm, Russell, Majors, and Waddell, which had furnished supplies and transportation for which it had not been paid. Badly overextended, and left shaky by the panic of 1857, this firm had faced bankruptcy; to stave off disaster it had persuaded Floyd to issue, in advance, signed acceptances, indicating sums that were now or soon would be due from the government. Since appropriations had been delayed, these actually were worth nothing much, but for a time Russell, Majors, and Waddell were able to discount them with the banks. In the summer of 1860 this would work no longer, and resort was had then to a complaisant clerk in the Interior Department, who gave the firm $870,000 worth of bonds belonging to an Indian Trust Fund, taking Floyd’s signed acceptances in return.
The whole deal was of course grossly illegal, although Floyd personally profited not a penny out of it, and it had come to light just about the time when the crisis over Charleston’s forts was developing. Buchanan had asked Floyd to resign. He had not asked him directly, because the President simply was not up to forthright action, but he had passed the word through the friendly offices of Vice-President Breckinridge. Stanton referred to the matter bitterly, in a heated cabinet meeting on December 28, when the question of ordering Anderson out of Fort Sumter was up for discussion; to Buchanan, he said that “no administration, much less this one, can afford to lose a million of money and a fort in the same week.”
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Floyd at last sent in his resignation, going to elaborate lengths to show that he was quitting because he disagreed with top policy in regard to the forts. His departure was no great loss to anyone, but it did have the indirect result of giving Anderson solid backing in the War Department. To replace him, Buchanan appointed Postmaster General Joseph Holt Secretary of War, and Holt, a sourvisaged man of considerable force, was an all-out Unionist who stood unswervingly with Black and Stanton. Trescot realized at once what the shift meant, and on the last day of the year he sent a telegram to William Porcher Miles: “Holt is Sec War. That means civil War I do not know what reinforcements are sent but I believe the orders have been or will be sent immediately I have heard that the
Harriet Lane
light draught is under orders make every preparation for preventing entrance into the Harbor.”
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As usual, Trescot was well informed. The
Harriet Lane
, a revenue cutter, would not be used, but action definitely was coming. Governor Pickens passed the warning along to Lieutenant Colonel Wilmot Gibbs De Saussure, commanding now at Fort Moultrie. To Colonel de Saussure, the governor sent a grim message:

“The authentic news from Washington not very favorable. Reinforcements
may be on their way
. I have ordered Capt. Cosle with his cutter to report to you, and to guard the outer entrance, to give you the earliest notice. All vessels to be stopped by him, if suspicious, or if supposed to have supplies or reinforcements for Fort Sumter— See him and give your orders. Be careful—and intercept all reinforcements if possible at all
hazards
.”
¹⁰

On the same day, Major Anderson wrote a report to Adjutant General Samuel Cooper. South Carolina troops, he wrote, were erecting batteries on Morris Island, a sandy expanse of land on the south side of the entrance to the harbor, within easy cannon shot of Sumter itself: “I am at a loss what this means, unless it be that some armed vessel is expected here.” He added that he was more than ever convinced that he had done the right thing when he moved to Fort Sumter: “Thank God, we are now where the Government may send us additional troops at its leisure.” He was a little pinched for supplies. On moving to Fort Sumter, the troops somehow had failed to take along enough fuel, soap, or candles, “but we can cheerfully put up with the inconvenience of doing without them for the satisfaction we feel in the knowledge that we can command the harbor as long as our Government wishes to keep it.”
¹¹

The government did, at last, definitely wish to keep it. President Buchanan had finally notified the South Carolina commissioners that he could have no further dealings with them—except, of course, in their private capacities as gentlemen of high character—and orders were out to send the sloop-of-war
Brooklyn
down with men and munitions as soon as she could be loaded. Suspecting what was coming, the commissioners notified Buchanan that they were going back to Charleston, and they added coldly: “If you choose to force this issue upon us, the State of South Carolina will accept it, and relying upon Him who is the God of Justice as well as the God of Hosts, will endeavor to perform the great duty which lies before her, hopefully, bravely and thoroughly.” This letter went into the White House files with the notation: “This paper, just presented to the President, is of such a character that he declines to receive it.”
¹²

Up to this time, most of the displays of public anger and determination had come in the South, and there had been little to show that the average Northerner either knew or cared very much what was up. Now there were certain indications. Major Anderson began to hear from people in the North, old friends and total strangers together, and he was getting letters of sympathy, stray bits of well-meant advice, offers of support. A bricklayer in Baltimore wrote that he had read of a shortage of workmen; if the major wished, he would raise a corps of workers “who would not hesitate to lay aside the trowel if it became necessary and help to
defend their country’s flag.” A New Yorker suggested that “citizen volunteers” charter a steamer and go South to “rescue the garrison & save the Fort,” and Edward Hinks, of the Massachusetts militia, posed a blunt question: “In case of an attack upon your command by the State (or would-be nation) of South Carolina, will you be at liberty to accept volunteers?”
¹³

Equally significant was a small ripple that briefly preceded Secretary Floyd’s departure from the cabinet.

Besides permitting the growth of a scandal over the dealings with Russell, Majors, and Waddell, Floyd had indulged in some rather free and easy actions in connection with the sale or transfer to the states of surplus Federal ordnance supplies. In substance, it was alleged that as Secretary of War he went to great lengths to put weapons in the hands of states that were about to secede. Later investigation would indicate that the amount of help thus given Southern states was greatly exaggerated, and apparently an important factor all along was simply Floyd’s old habit of slipshod administration. But there were a few cases that did have a rather sinister cast, and one of these involved the transfer of heavy ordnance from Pittsburgh to the Gulf Coast.

Under the prewar program, the government was building forts at Galveston, Texas, and on Ship Island, Mississippi. It would be many months before the Ship Island emplacements would be ready for guns, and the fort at Galveston was years away from completion, but late in October, Floyd directed an ordnance captain to send guns to both places as quickly as the Pittsburgh arsenal could deliver them. The shipments would be substantial—no Columbiads and eleven 32-pounders—and when the shipments were about to be made, late in December, the people of Pittsburgh learned about the deal and protested. The steamboat
Silver Wave
was docked, ready to take the weapons down the river; then the protest was raised. A group of citizens telegraphed Buchanan that “great excitement has been created in the public mind by this order,” and begged that the order be countermanded at once: “If not done we cannot be answerable for the consequences.” A delegation hurried to Washington to make protest in person, and Secretary Holt, who had at last replaced Floyd in the War Department, canceled the shipment.
¹⁴

This meant little enough, except as a straw floating down the wind, in which capacity it meant a great deal. The people of Charleston had shown anger and bitterness earlier in the fall, when an attempt was made to move arms from the Charleston arsenal to Fort Moultrie, and they had blocked the move. There had been nothing especially surprising about this: the people of Charleston had been passionately stirred for a long time and everybody knew it, and their reaction might have been anticipated. But now the people of Pittsburgh were beginning to behave in the same way, blocking the shipment of guns from government arsenal to government fort. The proud and vigilant anger that was on display in South Carolina was perhaps infectious, beginning to touch the hearts of men, not only in the cotton states, but far to the north as well.

The New Year’s reception at the White House looked very much the way New Year’s receptions always looked. There were flowers and gay music, with well-dressed people moving up to give President Buchanan a smile and a hand-shake, each one repeating the formal “I wish you a happy New Year, Mister President”; and although the weather was bad, things seemed to be bright enough inside the mansion. But neither the President nor his guests had any illusions about the happiness that 1861 was likely to bring to the people who occupied this building, and Mr. Buchanan looked tired and unhappy, as if he had had about all the strain he could take. Mrs. Roger Pryor, wife of the fire-eating Congressman from Virginia, felt that “a gloomy foreboding of impending disaster” oppressed everyone, and she reflected unhappily that the familiar social world of the capital was having the last of its old get-togethers. So many people had already left for the far South, so many more would be leaving very soon: no matter what happened, the group that met here on January 1, 1861, would never come together again.
¹

As a harbinger of coming change, there was the improved morale of Lieutenant General Scott. Scott was in Washington now,
and on New Year’s Eve he confessed that he felt more cheerful than he had been able to feel for a long time. A mixed policy of force and conciliation, he believed, was what the country needed, and this policy was going to be applied. A soldier could at last understand what was expected of him, and what was expected of General Scott—as President Buchanan had told him the day before—was that he would immediately move to put reinforcements into Fort Sumter.
²

The steam sloop
Brooklyn—
up to date, as wooden warships were rated at that time, less than three years old, a 2000-ton, propeller-driven, ship-rigged craft mounting twenty-two 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two rifled pivot guns—lay in Hampton Roads; and on December 31 Secretary of the Navy Toucey, after a conference with the President, wired the commandant at the Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk to fill the
Brooklyn
with provisions, water, and coal and hold the vessel ready for immediate service. At the same time General Scott, also at the President’s direction, drafted orders for the commanding officer at Fort Monroe: 200 regulars, fully armed and equipped, and taking with them subsistence for at least ninety days, were to be prepared to embark on the
Brooklyn
as soon as the ship was ready for them. The move was not to be made just yet; the President had notified the South Carolina commissioners that he would treat with them no more, but he felt that the expedition should not sail until they had had time to digest this news and to make reply if they chose; but by January 3 the
Brooklyn
had stocked up at the navy yard and was anchored off Fort Monroe, ready for the soldiers.

Before the
Brooklyn
could sail, however, plans were changed. Buchanan felt that any officer who tried to take troops to Fort Sumter would need plenty of muscle, and the
Brooklyn
was a powerful warship; but Scott—reflecting, perhaps, on the impossibility of keeping the move a secret—concluded that it might be better to use a fast merchant steamer, which could possibly slip into Charleston harbor before anyone knew what was up, and so the
Brooklyn
’s orders were canceled. Instead, the side-wheel merchant steamer
Star of the West
was chartered in New York, 250 recruits from Governor’s Island were sent aboard, plus food stuffs
and ammunition, and on January 5 this vessel headed out past Sandy Hook, turned south, and made for Charleston.
³

But nothing that was ever done in respect to Fort Sumter went quite as had been planned. Shortly after the
Star of the West
sailed, the War Department got a message from Anderson, who reported that he was in pretty good shape; he believed that he could hold the fort against any force likely to be brought against him, and “I shall not ask for any increase in my command, because I do not know what the ulterior views of the Government are.” Anderson added that the South Carolina authorities were busily putting heavy guns in battery to sweep the entrance to Charleston harbor, and he remarked that “we are now, or soon will be, cut off from all communication, unless by means of a powerful fleet which shall have the ability to carry the batteries at the mouth of this harbor.” This crossed a message which the War Department had just sent to Anderson, telling him that reinforcements were on the way and broadening his charter of authority: “Should a fire, likely to prove injurious, be opened upon any vessel bringing up re-enforcements or supplies, or upon tow-boats within the reach of your guns, they” [that is, Anderson’s guns] “may be employed to silence such fire; and you may act in like manner in case a fire is opened upon Fort Sumter itself.”
⁴